Recent Event Highlights: Crime down again, but rape cases jump (UK) [ http] Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders afflict South Africans (South Africa) [ http] More crime victims seeking compensation (Tasmania) [ http] Why don't dead victims have same right to privacy? (Canada) [ http] Deceased victims can’t be cremated because it would destroy DNA evidence (South Carolina, USA) [ http] Mapping identity fraud's impact on the UK (UK) [ http] and 547 more...
Created by rmccall on Nov 2, 2009
Last updated: 10/27/10 at 12:10 AM
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Sex laws ‘will protect vulnerable women’ (Northern Ireland) http://bit.ly/d35A8t
Amnesty Report: Justice systems fail female rape victims (Amnesty International) http://bit.ly/9wdKKj
Revealed: 700 Scots victims of stalking (Scotland) http://bit.ly/cEtbek
Stalked woman stunned by truth (New Zealand) http://bit.ly/dnQRdN
Not all crime victims pleased with bill to keep 911 calls off the air (Florida, USA) http://bit.ly/c8fPXd
Setback for abused women (Jamaica) http://bit.ly/d8tXvn
National [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/news-headlines-march-11-2010/
n the rush to save money in grim budgetary times, states nationwide have trimmed their prison populations by expanding parole programs and early releases. But the result — more convicted felons on the streets, not behind bars — has unleashed a backlash, and state officials now find themselves trying to maneuver between saving money and [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/safety-is-issue-as-budget-cuts-free-prisoners-usa/
Every fourth woman in Bulgaria is a victim of domestic violence, Bulgarian National Television (BNT) said on March 6 2010, two days ahead of International Women’s Day.
Most cases are caused by men seeking to exercise power over their spouses, with other causal factors including lack of money, alcohol, and childhood psychological trauma, according to research [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/every-fourth-woman-in-bulgaria-is-a-victim-of-domestic-violence-%e2%80%93-report-bulgaria/
State legislators expect a strong debate about whether juveniles’ names, photographs and other information should be put on a state registry when they are convicted of violent sexual crimes.
State Rep. Debra Young Maggart, R-Hendersonville, introduced a bill last month that would require youths 14 or older to be placed onto a public registry for violent [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/should-registry-log-teen-sex-offenders-tennessee-usa/
A case in which a teenage crime victim had her interview released to her alleged attacker, who invited friends and neighbors to his home to watch it, has prompted the House to crack down on access to the material.
“The victim felt so traumatized and embarrassed by this situation that she ultimately committed suicide,” said [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/house-clamps-down-on-release-of-victim-interviews-utah-usa/
Graciela Beines received a letter not long ago, which her lawyer says indicates she’ll soon have her permanent residency status.
“I cried for happiness; I’ve suffered so much,” said Beines, who left her native Argentina 10 years ago and arrived in New York undocumented, unmarried, without children and barely speaking English.
Shortly after her arrival, Beines, 50, [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/visas-out-of-hell-women-need-to-know-they-exist-usa/
In November 2009, a five-month CBS News investigation revealed that more than 20,000 rape kits at police departments around the country were never sent to crime labs for testing. The two-part series titled Rape in America: Justice Denied also found that kits that are submitted may not be tested for months, or even years, due [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/update-rape-in-america-cbs-news-usa/
A dispute over an exhibition of gruesome evidence from famous crimes escalated Thursday, showing that time does not heal the scars to murder victims’ families even after four decades.
The son of assassinated Sen. Robert F. Kennedy wrote he was horrified that his father’s clothing from the night he was assassinated in 1968 was being displayed [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/crime-exhibit-dispute-shows-families-scars-linger-usa/
Both the House and Senate have passed versions of a bill that would toughen state sentencing laws for the worst perpetrators of domestic violence.
The sentencing reforms in the bill, which passed unanimously in both chambers, were a major priority of Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna this year. He estimates the tougher sentences would apply to [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/bills-toughen-domestic-violence-sentencing-washington-state-usa/
Abby Panozzo said the day she was raped began in what seemed like safe surroundings — a block party with her teammates from the University of Wisconsin-Madison women’s lacrosse team. Panozzo’s teammates had vouched for the guy, an out-of-town visitor who was hitting on her.
When she brought him a glass of water, he was very [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/suffering-in-silence-campus-sexual-assaults-underreported-wisconsin-usa/
She was a gifted 14-year-old tennis player who idolized Steffi Graf and hoped to turn pro. He was a senior police official and president of the state lawn tennis club. He lured her to his office with a promise of special coaching that could make her tennis dreams come true, then groped her.
This encounter set [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/abuse-case-rouses-india%e2%80%99s-middle-class-india/
“Don’t ask me to smile, I don’t know how to smile,” says Fumana Ntontlo, as she poses for a portrait, hands folded in her lap, on the bed of her one-room shack in South Africa’s Khayelitsha township.
The walls and roof of her tiny home are made from corrugated metal, insulated on the inside with splintered [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/south-africa%e2%80%99s-child-rape-epidemic-reuters-photo-essay-south-africa/
A U.S. senator plans to introduce legislation that would impose criminal or civil penalties on U.S. Internet companies that bow to pressure of foreign governments and violate human rights.
Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, gave few details about the proposed bill during a hearing of the Judiciary Committee’s Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee Tuesday, [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/senator-to-introduce-internet-human-rights-bill-usa/
Behind the combat troops and military trainers, alongside the aid workers and agriculture experts, come the lawyers.
U.S. State Department legal experts and contractors are fanning out across the capital and throughout the provinces, trying to build a functioning legal and correctional system in a broken country where justice is too often delayed, denied or [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/in-afghanistan-u-s-seeks-to-fix-a-tattered-system-of-justice-usa/
Instead of lurking in bushes or hiding in the shadows outside of homes, stalkers have gone high-tech, using cell phones, computers and the Internet to hunt and track their victims.
“I know of some cases where people were stalked by e-mail or through Facebook or another social networking site,” said Bryan Oakley, an agent with the [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/criminals-use-technology-to-track-victims-uk/
The New Economics Foundation (NEF) said alternatives to custody should be used for youngsters because locking them up makes it more likely they will re-offend on release.
It’s report Punishing Costs, questions Labour and Tory plans to invest in new prisons, especially at a time when the public purse is facing drastic cuts.
But the Magistrates’ Association [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/young-criminals-cost-140000-a-year-to-imprison-think-tank-warns-uk/
L.A. County’s district attorney calls the implementation a ‘giant leap forward’ and says the system, designed to prevent cases from falling through the cracks, is the first of its kind in the U.S.
Los Angeles County authorities on Thursday announced an electronic system for sharing information on suspected child abuse among social workers, police agencies and [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/web-based-system-lets-police-social-workers-share-data-on-child-abuse-california-usa/
Crime victims are to get the right to confront their tormentors in court.
Criminals will soon hear their victims tell of the pain and suffering they have inflicted before they are sentenced.
Photographs, audio and video recordings, drawings and poems will be able to be used to reinforce the impact of the crime.
Children also will get a [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/victoria-crime-victims-are-to-get-the-right-to-confront-their-tormentors-in-court-australia/
So-called date-rape drugs are on the rise, according to the United Nations drug control agency’s annual report,
The International Narcotics Control Board says tough measures against the best-known drug, Rohypnol, have worked.
But sexual abusers are turning to alternative substances subject to less stringent international controls.
It wants these placed on governments’ controlled substances lists and for manufacturers [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/date-rape-drugs-are-on-the-rise-un-warns-uk/
In the fall of 2008, University of Colorado students who’d sought help from the school’s Office of Victim Assistance told counselors they’d been the targets of date-rape drugs used at the same fraternity in Boulder.
“There was definitely a pattern of women being drugged at a particular fraternity,” said Davian Gagne, who leads gender violence prevention [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/privacy-laws-prevent-sex-assault-investigations-usa/
David Strang says he is arguing for neither an end to prison nor an immediate reduction in criminal justice funding – both of which would seem to be immediately at odds with his role as one of the country’s most senior police officers.
However, the chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police is calling for a [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/chief-calls-for-radical-overhaul-of-system-community-sentences-scotland/
A law designed to ease financial pressure on victims of crime who receive legal aid to attend coronial inquests and parole hearings comes into force today.
Justice Minister Simon Power said the amendment to the Legal Services Act 2000 allowed the Legal Services Agency (LSA) to decide at any time during proceedings not to recover legal [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/law-to-ease-pressure-on-crime-victims-enacted-new-zealand/
George Orwell’s concept of doublespeak from his novel “1984″ has caught up with California government. Budget cuts to public safety are now called “reform.”
By definition, however, reform should make the situation better – not worse. The cuts sought by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will result in prison time poorly spent, dollars wasted [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/prisons-cant-afford-to-cut-rehabilitation-funds-opinion-usa/
The year 2009 was a grim one for many Americans, but there was one pleasant surprise amid all the drear: Citizens, though ground down and nerve-racked by the recession, still somehow resisted the urge to rob and kill one another, and they resisted in impressive numbers. Across the country, FBI data show that crime last [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/imaginary-fiends-crime-in-america-keeps-going-down-why-does-the-public-refuse-to-believe-it-usa/
There is an urgent need to have a comprehensive “victim assistance policy,” S.R. Nayak, chairman of the Karnataka State Human Rights Commission (KSHRC), has said.
Inaugurating a two-day national seminar on “Victims of human rights violations” organised by the S.B. Arts and K.C.P. Science College here on Wednesday, he said the acceptance of such a policy [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/nayak-calls-for-%e2%80%98victim-assistance-policy%e2%80%99-india/
The Supreme Court has held that in rape cases the testimony of the victim cannot be considered to be the gospel truth, though in normal circumstances her statement has to be relied upon.
A bench of justices H S Bedi and J M Panchal said while primacy has to be given to victim’s statement, there can [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/supreme-court-says-rape-victims-testimony-not-always-gospel-truth-india/
A majority of women believe some rape victims should take responsibility for what happened, a survey suggests.
Almost three quarters of the women who believed this said if a victim got into bed with the assailant before an attack they should accept some responsibility.
One-third blamed victims who had dressed provocatively or gone back to the attacker’s [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/women-say-some-rape-victims-should-take-blame-according-to-survey-uk/
A helpline for victims of stalking is being set up by the mother of a young woman murdered by an obsessive ex-boyfriend.
Tricia Bernal is hoping the project, the first of its kind in the UK, will protect others from the fate suffered by her daughter Clare who was shot dead while working at London department [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/stalking-victims-to-get-new-helpline-uk/
The sexual assault of employees of U.S. military contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan will be tracked by the Pentagon under a system it is setting up.
The tracking will likely begin this year, Defense official Gail McGinn said in a memo to the Pentagon’s Inspector General included in a report released Friday.
The IG evaluation was [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/pentagon-to-track-assault-of-contractor-employees-usa/
Judge Carolyn Henwood is characteristically judicious in her comments but there is an edge in her voice.
“It’s something that I care very deeply about,” she says.
The former Youth Court judge, who has also sat facing criminals in the district court and before the Parole Board, spent a decade developing a rehabilitation [...]
http://rmccallonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/rehabilitation-centre-for-reoffending-boys-closed-after-the-government-could-not-afford-to-run-it-new-zealand/
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